


An Arrangement of Superstitions

by chaosmanor



Category: Dogma (1999)
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>thanks to crimson_bride for the beta</p>
    </blockquote>





	An Arrangement of Superstitions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jacki](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jacki).



> thanks to crimson_bride for the beta

 

 

The noise of Bartleby breaking into the apartment was common enough that Loki ignored it as he hit the button on the TV remote to increase the volume.

"Fuck you!" Bartleby shouted. "Fuck you, and the wings you flew in on!"

Another crash, and the bathroom door burst open. Loki glanced up as Bartleby picked himself up off the carpet and straightened his clothes. "Why the fuck didn't you open the door?"

"Shh," Loki said, finger against his lips. "It's the Great Caesar's Ghost episode."

"Fuck Caesar, and his ghost," Bartleby said. "And fuck you, it's a fucking cartoon."

Loki crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders, aware he was pouting. Fuck Bartleby, Kimba the White Lion was one of the most important anime cartoons ever, introducing more Westerners to Japanese animation than any other cartoon, and Caesar's Ghost was his favorite episode.

Bartleby leaned over the back of the couch, close enough to make Loki move his head aside. "Oh God," Bartleby said. "You'd be crying if you fucking could, wouldn't you?"

Bartleby clambered over the back of the couch, kicking Loki in the shoulder on the way, but his arm was gentle as it settled around Loki's shoulders.

"Hey," Bartleby said, and Loki settled his head on Bartleby's shoulder. "Is that why you wouldn't let me in?"

"Yeah." Loki moved closer on the couch, and he could smell rain on Bartleby's hair, rain and cinnamon.

Bartleby shut up, for a change, staying quiet until the end credits rolled and Loki took a deep breath in, then pressed a kiss against Bartleby's cheek.

"You know it's sentimental bullshit, don't you?" Bartleby said, and Loki wasn't sure whether he was referring to Kimba, or to them, but he didn't care.

The next cartoon was Top Cat, so Loki flicked the remote, muting the TV. "Where've you been? You smell like baked goods."

"Panhandling. Some old bastard insisted on giving me his donut instead of money." Bartleby shoved a hand into his jeans, then dumped a handful of coins and bills on the coffee table, beside Loki's feet. "That's my share of the utilities. What're you going to do for your half?"

"Blow some old guys," Loki said. "Figured I'd hit the bars tonight, once they're all too juiced up on beer to care if I spit."

Bartleby's face was creased and unhappy when Loki glanced at him. "What?!" Loki asked. "You don't want me out sucking dicks for cash? Oh, for fuck's sake, get over it."

Bartleby's hand whipped out, but Loki was ahead of him, blocking the blow and grabbing his arm, so the pair of them tumbled off the couch, crashing into the coffee table before slamming into the floor.

Loki, on his back with Bartleby over him, was dimly aware of the person in the apartment below them thudding something against the ceiling, in protest at the noise, but Loki didn't care. Bartleby's face was twisted with anger, his words venomous. "I will not get over it," Bartleby hissed. "I am not going to watch you doing that."

"You were a watcher," Loki snarled. "You're supposed to fucking watch."

Bartleby would hit him. Then he'd hit Bartleby back. Then they'd go hang out at Burger King and heckle the kids behind the counter. It was what they did.

Only Bartleby didn't hit Loki. He smashed his mouth against Loki's instead, kissing him bruisingly, his full weight behind the mash of his lips, so Loki yelped and swung a fist at Bartleby's back.

His arm, traveling fast, crashed into Bartleby's outspread wing, but Bartleby didn't stop kissing him, even though it must have hurt like fuck.

When Bartleby finally wrenched his mouth off Loki's and lifted his head, Loki licked his own lips and said, "What the fuck was that for?"

Bartleby didn't look angry; the creases had left his face, and he touched Loki's cheek carefully. "Because, much as it pains me to admit this, the reason I can't bear to think of all those hideous wrinkly dicks in your mouth is because I'm jealous of them, and I don't even have a dick."

Loki frowned in thought, trying to process what Bartleby had said, then he shrugged. "Cool. I won't go suck dicks, then."

Bartleby's wings shivered, lifting his weight off Loki a little, knocking comics off the shelf behind the couch, and Loki rubbed his hand gently over where he'd thumped Bartleby, smoothing the feathers. "Sorry," Loki said.

Bartleby arched his neck, straining his shoulder muscles, so his wings pulled together and higher, and Loki could get both hands in, under his shirt, to where the limbs joined Bartleby's back.

The next kiss was slow and deep, searching for something that was possibly an apology. Loki kissed back, answering as well as he could, holding onto Bartleby, holding him down against the pull of his wings.

When Bartleby let go, his weight settled back on Loki again, his thigh across Loki's groin, rubbing at his pubis through smooth skin in a pale imitation of human mating. They might not have cocks and asses, but Loki had never met a human with wings, and wings might just be compensation enough.

When Loki slid his hand up to the joint of Bartleby's wing, scraping fingertips against sinew and bone, then pulled the articulated end of the limb down, Bartleby moaned, his eyelids drifting closed.

"Want it?" Loki asked, his voice rasping, and Bartleby nodded.

The long primary flight feathers, sturdy remiges, were smoothed together until Loki ran his fingertips between the feathers, spreading them. Bartleby buried his head against Loki's neck, gasping at the touches, and Loki smiled to himself.

"Is that good?" he asked, not expecting an answer, not when he was separating the feathers, then smoothing them together again, delicate grooming that would be sending shivers right through Bartleby.

Bartleby's teeth pulled at the side of Loki's neck, teasing his flesh, making Loki moan, too. "Oh, God," Loki gasped, "yeah, babe, feels so good."

They were going nowhere, there were no options for how what they were doing ended apart from frustration, but it felt so fucking good that Loki never wanted to stop.

Bartleby's wing was trembling when Loki worked his fingers all the way down, right between the primary flight feathers, and Loki felt like he was on fire, his body burning inside, his flesh so weak.

"You know," a voice drawled, "if she ever finds out you two are doing that, she'll take it away from you."

"Metatron," Bartleby groaned, letting go of the grip he had on Loki's neck with his teeth. "Fucking Metatron."

"Not me doing the fucking, darlings," Metatron said, as Bartleby lifted himself up off Loki with his wings. "Not you two, either, despite the noises you were both making. There are rules about having that much fun."

Loki pushed himself up to his knees, then fell onto the couch, while Bartleby flicked his wings, settling his feathers.

"Put it away," Metatron groaned. "No one cares how big your feathers are."

"Fuck you," Bartleby said, but his wings did glide out of sight. "Why the fuck are you pestering us?"

"Checking up on you," Metatron said, "since you obviously can't be trusted alone, not even in Wisconsin." He opened the refrigerator, in the kitchenette, tutted disapprovingly at the contents, then hitched himself up onto the counter and kicked the refrigerator door closed.

"You're a fucking voyeur," Loki said, pleased he was recovered enough to speak coherently. "Sneaking around on us. You could have knocked."

"Like you would have answered," Metatron said. "Besides, this was more fun. I do enjoy seeing the two of you discovering how far you can push things. Funny what millennia of boredom can do, isn't it?"

Bartleby, slouched in the easy chair, flipped two fingers at Metatron, and flashed a smile at Loki, who grinned back.

"So why are you really here?" Bartleby asked. "Apart from prurient curiosity?"

Metatron reached into the pocket of his Armani suit and pulled out an unlabeled DVD case. "Got something for Loki, something he wants even more than a dick and an ass in the arrangement of his choice."

The case spun through the air, and Loki snatched at it. "What is it?" he asked, prizing the case open. "Sweet Mother of God!"

"What?" Bartleby asked, but Loki was too stunned to speak for a moment.

The scribbled title, on the back of the disk, was barely legible, but if Loki tilted the disk, he could make out the letters. The Twelve Missing Hares.

"What's on the fucking disk?" Bartleby asked, his voice rising.

"Uncut, or so the nice young man I stole it from assured me, just before I swiped it," Metatron said.

"What the fuck is it?!" Bartleby shouted.

"The Twelve Missing Hares," Loki said, awe in his voice. "Twelve episodes of Bugs Bunny that have not been screened in their entirety for fifty years, for censorship reasons. I thought they were lost."

"Not lost now," Metatron said. "I brought popcorn; who wants some? And have you bastards got any tequila?"

Loki sat on the couch, precious disk in his hands, while Bartleby and Metatron bustled about the apartment, microwaving popcorn and lining up shot glasses and a spittoon.

"Why?" Loki asked, when Metatron took the disk out of his hands and crouched in front of the TV, ready to load the DVD player. "Why did you get it for me?"

Metatron leaned over and patted Loki's knee. "Don't tell her upstairs, but I'm quite fond of the pair of you."

"Fucking hell," Bartleby said. "If I could hurl, I would. Play this fucking DVD."

"Fuck you," Loki shouted at Bartleby. "Why do you have to spoil everything?"

"Stop!" Metatron said, holding one hand up imperiously. "Both of you, just stop for once, before I have to slap you both."

Loki crossed his arms, burying himself back further into the couch mutely, but Bartleby opened his mouth, ready to keep arguing, until he met Loki's gaze and subsided into silence.

"That's better, children," Metatron said. "We'll watch the cartoons, then I'll leave and you two can go back to sucking each other's feathers, or whatever it is you do when you think no one is watching."

The opening credits of the first cartoon scrolled up the screen, and Loki grinned in anticipation, but Bartleby, who could never ever let anything go, said, "What the fuck do you mean, we think no one is watching?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Metatron groaned. "Shut up and pour the tequila."

At the end of the first episode, Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, Loki glanced across at Bartleby, who winked back at him. Metatron tossed a piece of popcorn at Loki, and spat out a mouthful of tequila.

"Happy?" he asked Loki.

"Yeah," Loki said. "Think I am."

Bartleby didn't groan, much to Loki's surprise. Sometimes, he even thought he loved Bartleby, just a little.

 

 

 


End file.
